


Acrylics

by orphan_account



Category: six the musical
Genre: ...i think, Alcohol, Cambridge University to be specific, I did thirty whole seconds of research, I don't really know what the point of this is lol, It's not really Boleyn/Cleves, It's not teeeechnically underage drinking because the drinking age is 18 in England, Primarily about Cleves and Bo though!, They meet in university, You'll fine out sksk, and Cleves is also smart but here on an athletic scholarship, because Bo's Fuckin Smart, but it's kind of Boleyn/Cleves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bo talks to everyone as if they're her best friend.(Alternatively titled: I make shit up about Cambridge University for ~2000 words)





	Acrylics

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably gonna be a oneshot, unless for some reason people are interested in more?? But anyway!! On with it!!

Anna's no good at the core subjects, but she maintained good enough grades in high school, and that and her incredible athletic skills are what landed her here, with her backpack, purse, and a small suitcase, in the dormitory halls of Cambridge University. It's awfully pleasant to be out of her homeland and in this busy campus, and even better that she's actually _not_ the only black person in a five mile radius, but she also kinda wishes she had a map. The campus is massive-- it took her twelve minutes and 5% of her already critical phone battery just to get to the dorms.

Regardless, she has to resist the urge to smile too brightly as she gets to her dorm, has to remember to "chill" and "don't be weird" and such other advice her mother imparted before she got on the Greyhound. She fishes her room key out of her pocket and struggles for an embarrassing thirty seconds to fit it into the lock. It clicks. She grins, turns the knob, retrieves the key, and walks in, shutting the door behind her and beaming.

The dorm is-- well, you know, it's a college dormitory. It's a decently sized room with two beds in both of the farthest corner and one window situated in the middle of the wall opposite the door. Against the left wall is a counter, upon which rests a microwave and a small, single element stove. Between the beds are two small dressers, probably enough to house the clothes in Anna's suitcase, her jewelry, and her bible, but not much more.

She walks into the middle of the dorm and looks around, beaming as she takes it in. It's still morning, the 9:30 sun making its way into the sky and singing a little light into the room, and the particulates of dust in the air make it look like it's glowing, like the light is something tangible. Gorgeous.

 _Aah!!!_ She pulls her phone out of her pocket, opening her messages and going to the most recent conversation-- her friend, Bessie Blount-- to send a series of "😃"s to them. She sleeps her phone and sets it on the counter, looking over the beds. They both have sheets on them, but are otherwise undressed, so Anna must've gotten here before her dormmate.

Speaking of whom, what dumb luck is it that her dorm mate would practically have the same name as her? Anne Boleyn and Anna von Kleve? Are they expected to go all military and address each other by their last names?

Heh. "Anna, hailing from Cleves, daughter of Maria of Jülich-Berg, first of her name," she chuckles to herself as she takes her backpack and purse off, dropping her bag to the floor against the left bed's dresser. "Mother of dragons."

The door abruptly clicks open-- Anna shuts up and turns in time to see the most aggravated girl she's ever seen in her life drag herself through the door, drop her three suitcases on the floor, and immediately flop onto a bed with a loud groan. Anna watches for a moment as the girl's phone buzzes, as the girl picks it up, reads it, and promptly throws it across the room. She cringes when it bangs against the wall and clatters to the floor.

Well. This must be Anne. She must not've noticed her when she walked in. "You good?" Anna asks cautiously, and to her surprise, Anne doesn't even sit up to respond-- doesn't seem a bit surprised.

"Fucking boyfriend back home will not shut up," she responds exasperatedly. "Always something new with him, swear to God, every day he comes back with a new scandal. Fucking idiot."

"...Right," Anna responds. Was Anne expecting a friend of hers to be here? Is this even Anne? Maybe this girl's in the wrong dorm. "What happened?"

"He slept with his fucking ex again," she responds, gesticulating wildly towards the ceiling. "He sleeps around all the damn time, always tells me, oh, it's NBD, don't lose your head! Then has the nerve-- the _audacity!--_ to tell me that a couple texts between some friends who happen to be male is cheating?! It's bullshit! It's a double standard and it's bullshit!"

"I, uh. Feel your pain?" Anna responds, wanting to sympathize but also still hopelessly confused as to what the hell's happening. Anne abruptly pulls herself up to sit, looking up at Anna tiredly.

"Don't ever date a politician, Anna von Kleve," she instructs. "All they do is lie and cheat and steal money from poor people and vote to leave the fucking EU."

Anna chuckles. "I'll do my best," Now that Anna can see her face, she realizes that Anne is pretty, strikingly so-- blue eyes so light they're nearly white, brown hair with a couple stray green streaks up in two messy space buns, dressed casually in a loose tank top and black leggings, thin, long-limbed, she could be an Insta model if she did her makeup. At the moment, she appears to be barefaced, blemishes and freckles visible. Anna envies her confidence.

Anne observes her as well, blatantly checking her out. She grins. "You work out, then?"

Anna smiles, a little smug. "You could say that." She responds with a casual shrug, sitting down on the other bed. Her own outfit was chosen to show off her assets-- a black croptop with a red jacket and running shorts (It could not be more obvious that she's here on an athletic scholarship).

Anne sticks out her hand. "You can call me Bo," she says, and Anna nods, shaking her hand.

Hm. "Hello, Bo," It's a cute nickname. Anna wonders if she came up with it herself or if one of her friends gave it to her. Probably the latter-- she doesn't look like someone who'd be in short supply of friends.

Anna nearly chokes when she realizes that Bo's got green acrylics on each finger except the index and middle.

Bo grins. "Firm handshake," she comments after they disconnect. "You've got a bit of an accent. Where are you from?"

"Germany," she responds. "Cleves, to be specific."

"Guess that's where the name comes from, then?" Bo asks. "When did you move?"

"Just before freshman year," she responds. "Started high school in Richmond. I barely knew a word of English,"

"And now you're a proper Brit, eh?" Bo replies with a smile. "Hey, isn't your family, like, loaded? How come you've only got one suitcase?"

"Uh-- I dunno, I guess I wanted to start over?" Anna answers skeptically. "How do you know my family's..."

Bo cocks an eyebrow. "What, super rich?" She finishes with a chuckle. "I did a little homework. I found your Instagram last night and stalked it for a while,"

"So then wouldn't you have already known I was from Cleves?"

"Yep," Bo nods, popping the p at the end of the word and grinning. "But I got you talkin', didn't I?"

Anna blinks, a bit stunned. She chuckles, shaking her head. "Clever,"

"I get that a lot," Bo responds, turning to pad around on her bed. She frowns. "Where's my phone?"

Anna pauses. "You mean the one you yeeted into the wall five minutes ago?"

"Ohh, right," Bo responds, sitting up and walking over to retrieve it. "I forgot."

Bo's got a little pep in her step. Anna acknowledges that the girl's cute, but doesn't let herself consider it further. Bo picks her phone up from the floor-- she has no reaction, so it mustn't have shattered-- and smiles at whatever notification is on the lockscreen, glancing over in Anna's direction.

"Hey, a couple of my friends are heading to that bar down the street. You oughta tag along,"

Anna perks up. Liquor? How could she say no? "Your friends?" She asks, standing up and grabbing her purse.

"Well," Bo replies with a shrug. "I only technically met them an hour ago. They're at this school, too, and they seem pretty chill,"

"I mean, I'm in," Anna grins, and Bo nods, tapping out a response on her phone before slipping it into her purse.

"Well, let's pop this blowsicle stand, then," she responds, opening the door and heading out. Anna snatches her keys from her backpack and runs to catch up, shutting and locking the door behind.

\-----

An hour into the night, it's apparent that Bo is just... like that. She talks quite a bit, and she talks to everyone as if she's just gossiping with a friend she's had for ages. Her face and voice become familiar to Anna alarmingly quickly.

The other girls are really great, too-- Catalina Aragon-Castile, a 20 year old historical theology major who just got off a gap year she'd spent traveling the world; Jane Seymour, 19 years old, special education major, and mother to a three year old boy; Kit Howard, Bo's 18 year old "baby" cousin who doesn't actually attend university yet but got invited anyways, and has pretty much been spending the night in the booth with Jane explaining the nuances of the Hunger Games series; and Caty Parr, a government major, mostly quiet but a comforting presence regardless, just a couple months older than Anna. Anna takes mental notes and snapshots of each of them and makes sure to get their contact info in her phone-- a new school in a new county, she'll want some friends she can rely on. Plus, it, uh, won't hurt to have a catalog of their names with their faces. She's always been bad with names.

Kit's friends arrive to pick her up eventually, and Jane insists she's gotta get home to her son and her girlfriend (Jean? Jo? See, Anna's just bad with names!). Caty doesn't _look_ drunk, but judging by the three empty glasses in front of her and the one glass that's nearly empty (wasn't that full, like, a good thirty seconds ago...?), she must just be good at acting sober. Lina, evidently, is an angry drunk, we'll leave it at that, and Bo's on her fifth margarita, making momentary friends with whoever passes her by. Anna and Bo wait beside the door with Caty and Lina for their Uber, and once those two are gone, it's just her, Bo, and the rest of the stragglers in the bar.

The bar should be closing soon. They ought to get home if they don't wanna hate themselves during orientation tomorrow, but Bo's energy is boundless. She drunkenly fumbles to grab Anna's hand. "C'mon, let's get back in there, we've still got half an hour!"

Anna's about to decline-- her energy is significantly more finite and ran out, like, an hour ago-- but she notices Bo's nails again, the long acrylics versus the two short nails of her index and middle finger, and abruptly realizes that-- "Holy shit, do you have _six fucking fingers?"_

Bo cackles at that, stumbling and haphazardly throwing an arm over Anna's shoulders for balance. "People usually notice whenever I shake their hands," she slurs, and puts her finger on the tip of Anna's nose. "Took you long enough,"

Anna giggles at that. A passing car's got its brights on and blinds her for a moment-- she sets a hand over her eyes and steps back, cursing.

"Y'alright?" Bo asks, following her and setting her hand-- _six goddamn fingers, what the fuck--_ on Anna's wrist, guiding it away from her face. Anna looks up to meet Bo's eyes. They remind her how striking they are, glittered by the street light just behind Anna, those naturally long lashes, effortlessly pretty. Her breath catches in her throat and she swallows down whatever she was going to say, knowing full well it would come out incorrectly.

By the time Anna helps Bo stumble back into the dorm room, it's something like 4 in the morning. She thanks God they've got a day before classes begin, and Bo wails when she sees the beds, still without blankets. Anna definitely does not giggle when she hears Bo's lament, and the poor thing goes to sit on her bed. "I don't know where the blankets aaaaare,"

Anna walks over to her dresser, pulls the first drawer, and miraculously, there's a blanket inside. She presents them to Bo, who gasps like Anna's just discovered time travel. Anna chuckles, handing it over to her-- she takes it and wraps it around herself immediately, muttering _thank you_ from behind her hands, wrapped as tight as can be in the blanket.

"Mhm," Anna responds, sitting down on the edge of her own bed and glancing out the window-- she's already starting to sober up a bit. By the time she looks at Bo again, the girl's already cocooned herself in the blanket, lying down curled into the tightest ball possible, eyes closed, lips slightly parted.

 _Oh, no_ , Anna thinks. _She's gonna have such a headache tomorrow._ She grabs the pillow from Bo's drawer and politely tucks it under her head (Bo mutters something along the lines of "Don't touch my neck", and Anna registers it, saves it in Bo's file in her head) before returning to her own bed and pulling the blanket and pillow from her drawer.

It doesn't take much for her to fall asleep. Tomorrow's gonna be a bitch of a hangover, but-- she glances over at Bo again, already out like a light, notices that Bo sleeps with a hand over her eyes (six fingers!!!)-- she thinks she'll live.


End file.
